Travelling to India

Travelling to India - first as a fresh, naïve 20-year-old volunteer in an orphanage, and later as a graduate student researcher - changed the course of my life inextricably. A colleague recently asked me what it is about India that raises such strong reactions in travellers. I’ve thought about this a lot in the past, and I knew it had something to do with the intensity of the place, but could never quite put my finger on it. At that moment it struck me that India strips away all of our preconceptions and forces us to face the things we may not wish to face – both out in the world and within ourselves. We are struck by suffering, injustice, poverty, and all manner of sensory assaults superimposed on the indescribable beauty of the place and its people. We love it, we hate it, and we love it again. Every time the chaos threatens to send us home, never to return, an angel appears and all is redeemed. A flash of colour, a smile, the smell of food, or the impossible generosity of a stranger remind us why we are there. The endless contradictions force us to question our own world view and our place in that world. Nothing is as we once thought it was, and nothing will be seen in the same way again.